Klapisch: Yankees lineup sure is different, but AL East landscape stays same

Orioles closer Jim Johnson reacting after giving up a home run to Yankees DH Travis Hafner in the ninth inning. Johnson has blown three straight save opportunities after converting a franchise-record 35 in a row.

BALTIMORE – Go ahead and try to make sense of the AL East, which promised to be a billboard of parity in 2013. Remember that? Only, the Yankees, whose empire was supposed to be dwindling down by now like the final days of Rome, are getting stronger by the day. Those who’d plotted against them – the Rays, Orioles, Blue Jays – are gasping, mere fish on a hot dock.

Pitching-rich Tampa Bay? Think again. The Rays are 11th in the American League in ERA. David Price, the defending Cy Young winner, is 1-4 and ranked 39th with a 5.24 ERA.

Can’t-miss Toronto? In last place, barely above .400 with a telling 1-7 record against the Bombers. According to Coolstandings.com, the Jays have a 2.5 percent chance of getting to the playoffs.

The Orioles? Losers of six straight after being taken down by the Yankees, 6-4, in 10 innings on Monday, slipping so fast rival executives are whispering their I-Told-You-So’s about a front office that did nothing to improve the roster over the winter.

Funny how, after waiting for the tectonics plate to finally shift, the division looks remarkably similar: It’s the Yankees and Red Sox, getting ready for one of those beautiful hot summers might just take us back to the early 2000s.

Of course, it’s still early; plenty can change before we actually call this a pennant race. And in the meantime, the Yankees’ awareness of CC Sabathia’s velocity issues has ratcheted up after he coughed up a 3-2 lead in the seventh inning. The big left-hander averaged 91.3 mph with his fastball, generating only swings and misses on only 2 of those 40 he threw.

More damning, however, was Sabathia’s slider, which lacked its usual venom. The Orioles connected 23 out of 25 times against what Sabathia now considers his best pitch. That includes the one Nick Markakis nailed in the seventh inning that cost the Yankees the lead — a fat, 0-2 hanger that went screaming into left-center for an RBI double.

Sabathia admitted it was “very frustrating” that he couldn’t hold the lead for David Robertson and Mariano Rivera. So go ahead and ask: who’s the Yankees’ ace? Who, if the playoffs started today, would be your Game 7 pitcher? Lucky for everyone the night’s wound healed quickly, as Travis Hafner tied the game in the ninth with a solo HR off Jim Johnson, then drove in the insurance run in the 10th off Brian Matusz. That made everyone except Sabathia forget the mini-failure.

“I’m lucky these guys were able to bail me out,” he said. “I was just leaving pitches up tonight. … I just couldn’t put guys away.”

The Orioles, and certainly their fans, had reason to lapse into momentary insanity. The Yankees were 27-2 this year in games which they led; they’re the kings of the closeout. So to see Sabathia taking that million-mile walk to the dugout in the seventh … well, who could be surprised the noise-level inside Camden Yards was a rung above primal? The O’s had to believe the worst of their losing streak was over.

Sabathia was right, he couldn’t put the choke-hold on anyone – not Alexi Casilla who started the rally by lining a 1-2 single to right, not Markakis, who should’ve been crushed into fine powder down two strikes, and not J.J. Hardy, who was behind in the count, too, before plunking a run-scoring double into the right-field corner.

After all, these kinds of meltdown were supposed to happen to the Bombers all year and not just to Sabathia. But, six weeks into the season, they’re 12 games over .500, enjoying every last minute of the failure that never materialized. Joe Girardi smiled thinly when he said, “there were so many questions about how we were going to put it together … it’s kind of stabilized itself. It’s kind of a normal baseball season now.”

Actually, the manager knows he was dead wrong – the Yankees are flourishing on a formula no one would’ve bet on in March. There’s nothing ordinary about a lineup that somehow absorbs losing $90 million of talent to the disabled list.

How? Why? Don’t think the rest of the division isn’t flummoxed by that very question.

“It’s pretty amazing what they’re doing,” Toronto manager John Gibbons said over the weekend. “I remember when all their players got hurt and we were thinking, “this is a great opportunity for everyone else.” But the guys they brought in – I don’t know, there’s something about playing for the Yankees that brings out the best in you and holds you accountable. You produce or you’re gone.”

In the meantime, welcome to the alternate universe, as the Yankees are running away from the very teams who dreamt of their decline. The Orioles, for instance, were tied for first place as recently as two weeks ago, but now look like a team ready to unravel after Johnson’s disastrous performance in the ninth.

With one out, clinging to a one-run lead, Johnson fell behind 3-1 on Hafner, then left a fastball over the middle of the plate. The Orioles’ closer had already courted danger by running a full count against Robinson Cano, getting the slugger to chase a change-up that bounced harmlessly to second.

But this time Johnson chose power versus power and paid a heavy price. Hafner lifted a massive fly ball to left-center – so deep, so unmistakable in its arc, Johnson could only lower his head in disgust, revisited by the darker angels that haunted him in Game 3 of last year’s ALCS. Are the Yankees in the Orioles’ heads? Do we even have to ask?

Sooner or later, the Yankees will have to address Sabathia’s fastball – or, to be more precise, his need for a put-away pitch. But not just yet, not while the Bombers are living large in no-name heaven.